


Happy

by SquigglyAverageJoe



Category: Happy Tree Friends
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Morning Routines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25060714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquigglyAverageJoe/pseuds/SquigglyAverageJoe
Summary: Flaky considers her life and death.
Kudos: 6





	Happy

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself that when I started watching Happy Tree Friends out of boredom, I would not become a fan. I would not talk about it with my friends. I would not write or read fanfiction of it. I was just bored.
> 
> I keep starting my morning by screaming at my phone while cuddly cartoon characters are mutilated, and like the majority of the fandom, I guess—I really like Flaky! I almost made them go by “they/them” pronouns, but this was written for a friend who knows Flaky’s a girl, and most of the work I share with my friends usually has female main characters anyway, so I debated about it and then wrote three thousand words of Flaky contemplating her existence.
> 
> But come on! Let Flaky live, the poor thing! I literally only wrote this because I was so sad when she was too scared to ski, I had to stop the video before she got her foot on the nail on the board, I just couldn’t!

The previous night had not been kind to Flaky.

For a moment, she thought things were going relatively decent. She had been at Sniffle’s house with all of her friends. Petunia and Giggles had painted their nails and Giggles had wanted to braid her hair but had decided not to what with her being a porcupine and all and not wanting to die. Sniffles fixed his TV singlehandedly after it had been previously dropped on someone’s head or something similar. For awhile, Flaky had been glad she had left her house, even though she thought the usually very intelligent Sniffles had made a poor decision with not filing down pointy object, ditching all scissors out of the house, bolting heavy objects to the floor, etc.

Things had gone great. There was a movie playing (And Flaky only spent half of it cowering behind her hands!) and Handy (somehow?) managed to put a bag of popcorn into the microwave.

Flaky was still unsure—had Handy thought things were going too good? Did Handy have a death wish? Had Handy merely forgotten they had invited Flippy, or perhaps, Flippy’s tendency to occasionally lose every trace of sanity and slaughter whatever he deemed threatening in the area? ...Or, at least, Flippy was pretty sure Flippy (when flipped) only killed threats.

Then again, there had been that time when they had gone camping and the fire had caused him to flip and she had cowered inside her zipped up sleeping bag and Flippy had lifted her up and thrown her into the flames like she was nothing but a slightly spiky log. Had she been a threat then?

She didn’t know—she knew Flippy was a war veteran. She knew Flippy was relatively nice when he wasn’t murdering people, and she knew Flipqy (what they called Flippy when he was a serial killer) sure loved his Bowie knife.

Yep. It had been a blood bath. From what Flaky could remember, Fliqpy had shoved Handy into the microwave. Then she mostly just remembered Giggles screaming, and burning hot butter spraying onto her hands, chest and face. Despite how much Flipqy loved his Bowie knife, he had left it inside of her chest before using her to club Cuddles to death and took Sniffles out with a pair of scissors until he was ribbons on the floor. Except, Flaky had still been alive and had managed to escape and try to call 911—and the operator was, of course, Lumpy. So she had handed it off to the Mime, and of course that conversation lead to nowhere. Worse yet, while she slowly bled out on the floor, Petunia had made the terrible decision to (instead of trying to snap Flippy out of it, or fend him off, or help anyone) clean up the blood coming from Flaky’s body before she had gotten her eyes gouged out.

Yeah, Flaky didn’t think she was going to be attending any sleepovers any time soon.

But while the previous night had not been kind to her, neither had the night before, or the night before that, or any of the days or weeks leading up to this exact moment in time, where she laid in her bed, sore and absolutely traumatized, whimpering and shivering beneath the blankets of her bed.

Unlike Sniffles, she had taken precautions with her house. The floor was carpeted so no one could pry a wooden board up and kill her (or she could step on a nail on the floor board and go skiing down a mountain she didn’t want to be on. She had gotten rid of all of her scarves and now had no accessories to be worn around her neck, thus making it much harder to get caught on something and end up asphyxiating. After she had tried to buy a water bed, and then pricked it with her quills (and somehow Flippy had been nearby, heard it pop like a balloon and Flaky had not been able to swim in her flooding house while he shoved her head underwater and Russel had been no help) she had started attaching pieces of foil individually around the ends of her quills in case they tore through her (non-waterbed) mattress and the springs shot up to kill her in her sleep.

The window’s glass was fragile, so she could escape her house easily in case of an emergency, but it was also made of sugar and wasn’t that sharp when broken, and the window opened sideways so it wouldn’t fall down and separate her hands from her arms (which might have been how Handy lost his hands, and she knew Petunia had lost her hands like that once). And her kitchen had no knives, the corners of the counters were rounded, and the electric stove in her kitchen was just there for decoration, totally fake and not at all useful for cooking, but cooking was very, very dangerous in this world. (She had bought lemonade once when she was out for a rock—one of the lemons in that lemonade was definitely not a lemon. No. It was an eye. ...She drank eyeade with a hint of lemon and it was so gross she threw up and promptly vomited up all of her organs.)

So for the most part, she was very careful about what she ate (no peanuts, she could not eat any peanuts, she stayed the hell away from peanuts) and honestly...she didn’t eat a whole lot. Once, she ate an apple and there was a worm in the apple and she choked to death. She also choked to death on a cherry pit, and once, a turtle. She didn’t know why. She had also gotten killed by Godzilla?

She spent a minute, horribly unsure of whether she should actually get up. She did not want to get up—not because she was tired, though a spot on her chest was kinda tender and she swore she could still feel where the butter had melted her skin (how did the butter get that hot anyway?) but she was awake and ready to start her cautions, nerve wracking day. What if she stood and all of her organs fell out? Or the sun seared her retinas and she was blind like the Mole? Granted, the Mole did mostly fine, even blind and while it’d be an adjustment, Flaky didn’t think being blind would be a tragedy—but then she wouldn’t even know about half the problems around her. The Mole didn’t even understand half the things he did blind—though, once, he had correctly guessed that Flipqy was trying to stab him and managed to somehow slice him in half when he slammed his cane over the stop of his head.

Her stomach churned. Reluctantly, she swiveled her legs off of the bed and onto the floor and cringed. The morning was silent. Slowly, she pulled each and every piece of tin foil individually off of her quills. She was not feeling the best. She threw each piece away—she couldn’t really think of a horrific, bloody death she could suffer from a small piece of tinfoil, or even many small pieces of tin foil, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She managed to toss every piece (rolled up into a tiny ball) into the small trash can she kept near the door to her bedroom.

Glancing around to make sure Flipqy wasn’t nearby waiting to murder her or that the Mole was walking towards her with his unrealistically sharp cane having entered the wrong house again, she slowly stood up and waited.

Nothing. Outside, a bird chirped, and against her instincts, she looked outside, expecting to see Lump being attacked by a flock of them. She saw one sitting on a tree branch outside her window and she wondered if the bird would peck it’s way through the sugar glass and take out one of her eyes, but instead, it continued it’s short, sweet song before flying somewhere else, leaving nothing behind, taking nothing with, but still carrying it’s song.

Okay. That was nice.

She swallowed and looked around before eventually making her way outside,

The morning was chillier than it looked, but not enough to really warrant a jacket (a scarf would probably do, but no, no scarves). She looked around, took a deep breath and sat on the front porch for a moment.

It was beginning to snow. Across the street, Nutty was sitting and she thought, for sure, Nutty was again going to somehow thing sugar was falling from the sky and go crazy (he had once actually tried to eat Flaky’s sugar window and she had had to throw a candy bar away from her house so he’d chase after it—it had come back like a boomerang and beheaded her. Nutty had gotten the bloody candy bar and her windows, Flaky had gotten a very traumatizing head ache).

But Nutty was only standing on his own front porch, looking very content while he ate a sucker (and no one was losing their eye!). Politely, she waved at him—Nutty seemed to think that was an invitation to come over there and talk to her.

It wasn’t that Flaky didn’t like Nutty—he just had a tendency to go into fits that could only be cured with sugar and Flaky didn’t have any candy on her today. “Morning, Frosted Flakes.”

She laughed nervously. “Morning.” Nutty had a tendency to call her ‘Frosted Flakes’ like how he randomly called people he liked “sugar” or “sweetie.” It was likely these were just very high compliments but they always sounded weird. The “Frosted Flakes” nickname had been funny until he once tried to eat her—after the first bite though, he had realized Flakey was not frosted in the slightest, did not taste sweet was actually very painful, so instead he had stolen her window. Without a window, she had called Handy to help her repair it, but she had fallen out of the large hole in her wall and Handy had rushed forward to help her but he...didn’t have hands. And he just kind of glared at her while she fell to her death.

It felt like Nutty was a bit too close—she shyly moved away. Nutty noticed but didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t seem as hyper as usual, which did make sense. He had been going through a bad patch—he had no candy and he had been irritable and filled with murderous rage whenever someone looked like they might potentially be carrying candy but never was. This was always the best time to talk to Nutty—when he was getting his sugar fix but was still slow from his recent lack of sugar. “What happened last night?”

“Sleep over,” she sighed. “There was popcorn. Flipqy killed me.”

He nodded—he didn’t even ask why he wasn’t invited. No one really liked being around him when he was experiencing a withdrawal, and Sniffles didn’t have much sugar in his house anyway. Said it was ‘bad for you’ but so was being cut to ribbons with a pair of scissors and Sniffles still did that. Everything was going to kill everyone eventually and Flaky did like sugar—though, most of her sugar ended up going to her neighbor. “So, one of those days? Is that why I’ve only seen Shifty and Lifty?”

“Everyone’s likely recovering. It was not a fun night.” She looked around. There was no imminent threat.

“Yeah, my night sucked too. I would have risked the vending machine again, but it was empty.” Flaky didn’t think that was the same, but really, Nutty had a very bad addiction to candy—while Flaky’s face was being melted by butter and she was bleeding out onto the floor and Sniffles was in pieces, Nutty had likely been lying on the floor, his mind in pieces. Addiction was not a pretty thing.

Flaky sighed. “Let’s just hope this day’s better.” She didn’t think it would be—what if the sun crashed to the earth and incinerated them? What if a building exploded again and Flipqy went on a killing spree? Flaky couldn’t get lunch anymore when she could choke or be poisoned, or have her face melted off on a grill, and she couldn’t go swimming, or go to an amusement park, or play sports, or go roller skating. Honestly, she was scared that she was scared—what if her heart burst inside of her little porcupine chest?

Nutty nodded—it made his eye move kind of weird and even when he made eye contact, his green one was looking elsewhere. Whatever, Flaky could be used as a weapon to club and impale her friends, she wasn’t gonna judge Nutty for his lazy eye. “I think today is already better. Shifty and Lifty came by—they robbed a store in another town, no one got hurt but they got a bunch of candy.”

Flaky looked around—and smiled. Pop and Cub were out for a walk, Cub in his stroller while his father carefully watched over him, sucking on a lollipop. A chocolate bar was sticking out of Pop’s pocket, but he seemed to be giving Cub his full attention. The walk looked peaceful. Nearby, Toothy was in his yard, lying in the grass and watching the clouds as best he could with an eye patch, surrounded by dandelions. Sniffles, walking with a limp, looking like he had been stitched back together and was exhausted, stopped near an anthill and placed a cookie down by it, raising his arms up by his head while a family of ants watched him, waving a small white flag of surrender, and Flaky wasn’t certain, but she was pretty sure the ants gave him a thumbs up before taking the cookie and retreating back into their anthill. Russel was sitting on the curb, eating Swedish Fish and humming “To The Sea.” The Mole drove by slowly, a cutesy stuffed animal in the passenger seat. Around the corner, Mime gave a balloon animal to a passing Cub and danced with Disco Bear for a good five minutes.

She waited—for Pop to slip up and Cub to get hurt, for a nearby beehive to fall and the bees to take out Toothy’s other eye and maybe destroy his garden, for the ants to change their mind and maybe try to rush Sniffles, for Russel to choke, for the Mole to crash, for Disco Bear to accidentally kill Mime, for this one peaceful moment the Happy Tree Friends get to have to shatter like glass and get stuck in someone’s eye.

Cuddles threw a snowball at Giggles and Giggles laughed and laughed, grabbing his hand as they walked away. Petunia was helping Handy re-bandage his hands in her front lawn. Flippy slowly walked across the sidewalk, wearing a pair of earmuffs and gave Flaky a friendly thumbs up but didn’t stop to talk—he knew how Flaky was.

“Don’t you ever worry that...we’ll, you know...die?”

“Of course—but so long as I die with a piece of candy in my hand, or...preferably mouth, I think I’ll be alright.”

Flaky shook her head. “This is terrifying.”

“Tell me about it, I ate my own eye on a s’more.”

“But I mean...” She swallowed, looked at Giggles and wondered if her friend’s skull was cracked open, if she had just broken Cuddles’ hand, wondering if Petunia had skinned herself with a potato peeler again or lost her hands again or was on fire, or if Flippy was coming back with that Bowie knife. “It’s scary. And...I can only ever be scared. Because I’m just going to live another day to die another day and it’s terrifying, and I’m so sick of being scared...” Her stomach was still churning, her head spinning. A nerve wracking start to a nerve wracking day, a day that was going to end with her what? Getting choked out? Blowing a piece of bubble gum and then suffocating when it was all over her face? Getting mutilated by a mop? Or was she just going to watch one of her friends die a bloody, twisted death? “But if I don’t feel scared, I’m scared I won’t ever feel anything ever again. And I’ll just be bored. Waiting to die.”

Nutty almost looked sympathetic—but it was a little difficult for an electric green squirrel with candy stuck in his fur to look sympathetic. “Maybe that’s just part of our lives. I think, the important thing is to find something that’s worth living for—and then we have a reason to fear death. Mine’s candy.”

Apparently done talking, he waddled back across the road and into his house. He was not hit by a car. A snake was not hiding in the grass of his lawn. He did not trip and crack his skull open on the front steps. Shifty and Lifty walked by, each dragging a very large bag of candy. “Hey, what’s that weird, red porcupine’s name again?” Either Shifty or Lifty asked.

“I’ve no idea. Isn’t she the one everyone ships with Flippy?”

“Wait—the porcupine’s a girl?”

“...I think?”

“Hey, girl, do you want some candy or what?” Flaky had no idea how to react—she had always felt bad for Shifty and Lifty because they always seemed to die and she knew they stole because they were flat broke.

“...You stole it?” She asked.

“And we weren’t made into candy!” One shouted while the other shouted, “No, and we’re totally not bribing you into not ratting us out to the police about this!” They argued for a minute about what to give her before tossing a small bag of kettle corn near her. She jumped, wondered if this was it, but then they left, not seeming to really care. She looked at it.

She didn’t get any popcorn the night before. She looked it over. There was no peanuts in it. She opened the bag and waited—and then looked at her hand. Her fingers still had skin. Was it poisoned? Was she going to choke?

Reluctantly, she put a piece into her mouth. It was crunchy, salty and sweet—you know, like kettle corn. Flaky sighed—for a minute, things were good. She did not choke.

For once, instead of scared, she felt happy, and it was a nice change.


End file.
